


How to Write a Love Story

by uniqueinalltheworld



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Character Death Optional, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 15:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4142796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniqueinalltheworld/pseuds/uniqueinalltheworld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassandra tries her hand at writing a story of her own; Varric has a few suggestions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter can be read as a fluffy one-shot standalone. The second chapter contains the end of the story arc, but also major character death. So if you are like me and get too emotional to be able to stand really angsty fic, read chapter two at your own risk.
> 
> (Also, this fic does NOT fit into the Pity for Lovers and Fools universe, for those of you who read my other stuff and are wondering what the hell happened to Cass and Josie.)

Cassandra frowned at her paper. It seemed so much easier when other people did this.

 

Surely, she was capable. She wrote reports all the time, after all.  She glowered at her pen when her hesitation allowed ink to drip onto the parchment.

 

_Victoria drew an arrow from her quiver_ was all she had. There was a soft tsk from the garden bench next to hers.

 

“You’re going about that all wrong, Seeker,” Varric said.

 

“I have hardly written enough for you to prove that.”

 

“Sure you have,” he launched himself over to her bench, ducking his head close to hers and pointing at the paper. “See there? You’ve got a hero’s name, but not a hero’s weapon. Archers are good for sidekicks, but you can’t have your hero hiding in the dark and firing at her problems. She’s got to face them head on. Can’t flinch.”

 

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “What weapon do you suggest, then?”

 

“A short sword. Perfect mix of brutality and elegance. There’s a reason they’re a classic.” He grinned at her with discomforting intent. She felt warm all of a sudden. Perhaps the sun had finally risen high enough to peek over the walls of Skyhold’s garden.

 

Varric continued, undaunted. “And give her a shield with something soft, like roses painted on it.

 

“Why on earth would I do that?”

 

“Because your audience wants to know there’s more to her than just fighting,” he said. “When you have someone tough, everyone wants their softer side. If you have a character that’s funny or shy, people want them to show they can toughen up when they need to. Plus, it’ll make for a great description when your hero inevitably gets wounded in defense of her lover. You know, ‘ _blood poured from her gash, the exact shade of red that appeared on her shield of roses_ ,’ that sort of thing.”

 

Cassandra made a disgusted noise at that. Varric laughed.

 

“Roses and steel,” she said.

 

“Hey, hey, no need for disdain. Roses and steel are always a good combination.”

 

“Anything else you find wrong about this half of a sentence?” She asked, her accent thicker with her sarcasm.

 

“You’re starting too early,” he said. “People don’t want to hear about the action. They want the good parts. You can’t keep them waiting forever to get to the first page.”

 

She was suddenly very aware that their thighs were touching there on the bench when there was plenty of space on either side of them, that his hand kept brushing hers as he pointed to words unnecessarily. “Is the action not the good parts, then?

 

“Almost never, Seeker.” She sighed and tried again, scratching out the old words and writing instead, _Victoria sheathed her sword, exhausted, and looked up to meet her lover’s eyes._ He smiled at her and grasped her hand, carefully unwinding her fingers from the pen. Deliberate, this time.

 

_And they all lived happily ever after._

 

He wrote it at the very top of the page before placing the pen back into her hand. His writing was neater than hers, for all that her hand was more certain.

 

“You wrote that like it was the beginning,” she accused.

 

Varric laughed. “That’s because it always is.”


	2. The End

He told her once—and it seemed like years ago now; perhaps it was—but once he told her the secret of how all great stories begin. Now he wished he had said something different. It didn’t matter, though. When you sent a story into the world, it stopped belonging to you. Its meaning was no longer yours to give.

 

It should have been the ending, he thought; him bringing her flowers and candles and poetry that he never mentioned he had long ago already written. It was for her. The writing always was. Since he met her, every tale he spun had been about how their story was tied up in all of his. The story should have been over then, the way he would have written it. All excitement and new beginnings and the enormity of complications that could be handled tomorrow.

 

When he wrote it down, that’s where he would end it. When he brought her flowers and she fell, laughing, into his candlelit bed.

 

Now, roses bloomed in Cassandra’s chest, red and perfect. In all of his tragedies and romances, he had never written a hero who would refuse to touch the flowers again as long as he lived. It served him right, he guessed.

 

“The book, Varric,” she whispered, the fires around them shone on her moon-pale face. “Tell me how it ends.”

 

He tried to laugh. That this was her last request. It somehow made sense to him in a world gone mad. A world where he had found peace in the middle of the plot despite beginning with a stabbed book and ending with his hand curled tight in a bloody gauntlet.

 

“It ends with a kiss,” he said. “The hero saves her man, and then they both ride off into the sunset.”

 

She scoffed at him, the sound pulling blood up from her throat. It had pierced her lungs, then. “I am not in the mood for platitudes, Varric.”

 

He gave a shuddery sigh and tried to arrest the tears before Cassandra could see them. Always and forever a Seeker of Truth. He obliged her, though it pained him to hear his own voice. “It ends how all great stories end, Seeker. It ends with the retelling of it.”

 

It was years before he was able to walk past the rose bushes at Skyhold again. Those years changed him. He learned to fight with a short sword instead of a crossbow. He learned to confront his problems instead of hiding and shooting at them.

 

It somehow figured that it would be Merrill to ask him about it then, visiting with Hawke and blissfully unaware of most of the things that had happened in her long absence.

 

Merrill asked about the sword he called Victoria again, assuming he hadn’t heard her. He put a finger to the first page, the one she had been writing that day in the garden sun. The one he had ever since carried in his pocket. He took a deep breath and then let it go.

 

“Once upon a time,” he began.

**Author's Note:**

> Say hi at [Eugenideswalksintoabar](http://eugenideswalksintoabar.tumblr.com)


End file.
